a tribute to teachers

We had a visit by a teacher from local primary school 3 days ago. As you guessed it rightly, it was for filling census form. Throughout the form filling process he never made any complaint about anything, about the heat of the afternoon, about how some people didn't even allow him into the home and he had to write all answers standing in the door only, about how he had to climb many stairs in the hot summer afternoon and sometime  people never bothered to offer even water to him. I could think of many such problems that i witnessed in my building itself.. but he had only one response to my query- a smile!

Then he told me he was teaching to 9th standard students and how it was important for them to finish the syllabus early so that they could start the 10th study.His only grudge was that due to this election duty, he could not finish the syllabus himself and now a substitute teacher is teaching them. Even in those few minutes of interaction he spoke about his students.  (it is surprising how government care little for education of students from government school.. they think they can snatch their class teacher whenever they want and can substitute with anyone they want.. )

When i offered him some sharbat, he declined politely and said he have to visit many homes and could not afford to waste time. Within 10 minutes all the form was filled and he left the home.

In all this interaction, i could not show the simple courtesy of asking his name or say thank you to him.. and i felt ashamed for it. 

But now i realised he was just a faceless representative of millions of teachers who had this responisbility of gauging the nation's potential, through the nation wide program of census. He represented all those whose first love is students but who will not shy away from a national duty.

During all these exercise, he had to visit many areas where people like me will not visit for anything. I wondered how he takes the journey to areas many people will shy away  from or afraid of visiting.. like areas dominated by maoists,  ghettos, red light areas.  

But still, his work is largely unrecognised. All big plans, assumption, projections etc based on the census should always acknowledge the contribution of teachers in the preparation of their grand plans. But sadly, here too, he remain largely uncredited. 

This is a tribute to those teachers who made sincere contribution in the nation building. Consider it as a personal tribute too as i am also one of those who studied in government primary school.